


quiet nights

by autistic_dragon



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Kane Chronicles - Rick Riordan
Genre: Eating Disorders, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:41:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23362621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autistic_dragon/pseuds/autistic_dragon
Summary: Carter didn't realize how different the lives of demigods and magicians are.
Relationships: Percy Jackson/Carter Kane
Comments: 5
Kudos: 116





	quiet nights

**Author's Note:**

> Demigods have real fucked up lives, huh.

"Are you doing okay?"

Carter wasn't trying to eavesdrop, really, but he needed something from the kitchen and Grover and Percy were _right there_ , standing close together and looking so serious. When he asked the question, Grover's head was bent towards Percy's, his voice low and soft. Careful.

Percy wasn't looking up from the cupcakes he was frosting and Grover wasn't looking away from him and all Carter could do was hover in the doorway and try not to bring attention to himself. The tension in the kitchen made him rethink his decision to get a soda, and he backed away as quietly as he could.

Even as he returned to the party and his friends, Carter still thought about the blankness in Percy's gaze.

* * *

"Have you been eating?"

Even as Percy casually changed the subject, Carter knew that the answer was no. Their dates recently had consisted of Percy doing a lot of talking while he pushed his food around on his plate. There were so many mornings where Percy would curl up on the couch with a cup of black coffee, sipping at it quietly and giving a tired, distracted smile when Carter talked to him. Offers of breakfast were neatly turned down without Percy making it seem like a rejection.

When he did eat, Carter usually heard him throwing up in the bathroom not long after.

He knew Percy wasn't eating because he was there to see it, was able to feel the sharp lines of his boyfriend's ribs and collarbone and vertebrae. He watched the love of his life drop pounds like they were pennies, going from lithe and athletic to just. . . gaunt.

Piper didn't see those things, but from the look on her face, she didn't have to. She knew the answer to her question.

* * *

Percy never screamed at night. He never gasped himself awake or cried out in his sleep.

Instead, he just got eerily quiet and stiff. He never stopped moving and making noise, even snoring softly and shifting constantly in his sleep, but when he had a nightmare, he went as still as death. It was unnerving and worrying and—

"He's trying not to bring attention to himself," Annabeth told Carter over lunch one day. Her voice had been so soft, like she was afraid that someone was listening in. Maybe she was. "On the field, making too much noise means being discovered. So he trained himself out of it so that he could survive."

The unspoken _and I did too_ hovered in the air around them. Annabeth and Percy's history went uncommented on, just like always. There was nothing to say.

Carter didn't know how to someone who wouldn't ask for help. How do you comfort someone who refuses to cry? How do you drag someone to shore when they don't tell you that they're drowning?

Their nights were quiet.

* * *

Carter thought he understood. He thought that magicians and demigods were more or less the same, that the similarities would outweigh the differences. He thought he was prepared for falling in love with a demigod.

He was wrong.

The demigods he met were. . . different from anything he knew. They threw themselves into danger without even thinking about it, as if death was an old friend. They stared into space blankly, like they couldn't hear or see anything around them. They spoke around holes in their lives, refusing to acknowledge the shapes of their loss.

What had they lost? What was he missing?

Percy dreamed of horrifying things that he didn't talk about to Carter, didn't talk about to anyone. He slept with Riptide under his pillow and a Stygian iron dagger under the mattress. He was covered in scars that he wouldn't talk about, claw marks and stab wounds and electric burns and faint belt marks and cigarette burns lining his back. He didn't acknowledge the neat lines on his arms, thighs, and stomach. His eyes stayed dry but his movements were alternated between sluggish and jerky, like he was just going through the motions of existing. He clawed his being into shreds and hoped that no one noticed.

Percy had a burial shroud tucked away in their closet, folded inside an old Payless shoe box and buried under a heavy quilt that neither of them used. The shroud was a brilliant shade of blue that shimmered when it moved, and it was decorated with silver and gold embroidery detailing epic journeys and incredible battles that Carter didn't ask about.

They didn't talk about the shroud, but its presence hung over them, the weight of it draped over their lives. For something so small, so delicate, it was a heavy burden to carry.

On the quiet nights when Percy was sleeping well, snoring and shifting in bed beside him, Carter wondered when they would have to use it.

He didn't understand.

* * *

"I'm seeing someone."

_You're not supposed to tell me when you're cheating on me,_ Carter wanted to joke. He didn't though, because Percy wasn't looking at him, was curled in on himself like he was afraid of Carter's response. It made something sour and bitter unfurl in Carter's stomach, a longing for Percy to finally feel safe.

Her name was Evelyn McMurray. She was a child of Apollo, a mild young woman who had never undergone a quest and who had lived long enough to be one of the oldest demigods alive at 29. She was also a therapist, probably the only mental health professional in the entire world who could understand, Chiron explained through Percy's voice. His first appointment with her was in a week.

Not much seemed to change after that. Percy disappeared once a week, at the same time every Wednesday evening, and came back quiet. Wednesday nights were spent curled around each other on the couch together, watching movies and not talking about Percy's appointments. Their lives continued.

But slowly, steadily, over months and months, the shadows in Percy's eyes grew lighter, the still and silent nights became a bit less frequent, and Percy relearned how to hold down meals. He put on a bit more weight, laughed louder, and started going back to camp to help with training and games.

He cried in front of Carter for the first time, silent tears that morphed into heaving sobs, and they held each other on the cold tile of their bathroom floor.

It wasn't perfect. Percy still had nightmares, still skipped meals, still went somewhere else sometimes when he thought too long about certain things.

It wasn't perfect and it never would be, because that's just how trauma is.

But it was better, and they could both keep moving now.

* * *

"Are you happy, Percy?"

"With you? Always."

It was enough.


End file.
